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CDE Unix desktop open sourced: The Open Group, the steward of the UNIX standards, has open sourced the CDE classic desktop for Unix under the LGPLv2 licence. The Common Desktop Environment and the Motif toolkit on which it is based, itself open sourced in 2000, became the de facto standard for Unix desktops in Unix's commercial hay day in the 1990s. CDE broadened the concept of simple window managers configured by means of text files which had previously dominated the Unix world; it included a desktop offering integrated applications and graphical configuration tools.

Saying Goodbye To PCLOS: The boot took forever. Several times I thought the system had stalled, then the progress bar would creep ever so slightly forward. After more than a few minutes I was prompted for the keyboard language, so I used the USB mouse I attach to the laptop whenever I’m at home and selected “English.” After another two or three minutes the desktop started showing up, piece by piece, but still very slowly. I killed time by playing with the mouse a bit, watching the cursor play across the screen. Unfortunately, when the installation was complete, the mouse and keyboard suddenly quit working. With no way to address the system, I took it down cold with the power button and rebooted. Again, it took forever to load and I lost use of the mouse, trackpad and keyboard the instant the boot was complete. This was only a minor inconvenience. I’d soon get help on the PCLOS forums and would have this problem fixed in short measure.

Linux Mint developers work on GNOME file manager fork: GNOME is continuing to lose supporters as now part of the Linux Mint programming team start working on a fork of the GNOME file manger, Nautilus. Once upon a time, the GNOME Linux/Unix desktop team could do no wrong. That was a long time ago. More recently, GNOME has lost many of their Linux desktop supporters. Now the GNOME developers' proposed changes to Nautilus, the GNOME file manager, is losing them more fans. The Linux Mint developers have started work on their own fork of Nautilus: Nemo.

GNOME OS plans laid out: Allan Day has written a blog post on the concrete plans for "GNOME OS" and provided background on the ideas that have motivated those plans. The post is a summary of planning sessions held at Guadec 2012, the recent GNOME developers conference.

Nokia straps Qt into ejector seat and hits the shiny red button: Nokia's back-room clear out continues with the Qt platform being sold to Finnish firm Digia Oyj for an undisclosed sum. As part of the deal 125 engineers will swap employers. Digia was a licensee of Qt, distributing commercial and freeware versions of the platform and development tools, but now it owns the whole shebang.

The Perfect Desktop - Linux Mint 13 XFCE: This tutorial shows how you can set up a Linux Mint 13 (Maya) desktop (with the XFCE desktop) that is a full-fledged replacement for a Windows desktop, i.e. that has all the software that people need to do the things they do on their Windows desktops. The advantages are clear: you get a secure system without DRM restrictions that works even on old hardware, and the best thing is: all software comes free of charge.

Best Linux Mailing List Managers: Electronic mailing lists are normally automated using dedicated mailing software and a reflector address. Mailing lists are often used as a two-way method of discussion between interested parties, or a one-way dissemination of information where only selected individuals can make posts.

Steam on Ubuntu could hurt gaming on Linux: Now, I’m not opposed to some healthy competition. Quite the contrary. But, in this case, I’m concerned. We don’t need two software stores. We need one that is highly successful and pulls in large-enough sales volumes to attract developers and publishers to the platform. Currently, the Ubuntu Software Center is still in its early stages. It’s growing and improving, but is not yet large enough (in terms of individuals actively using and purchasing software) to make it truly enticing for publishers to invest the resources needed to port their wares to Linux. My chief concern is that the arrival of Steam will simply serve to splinter the already small (relatively) user base of “people on Linux who buy software through a digital store." I would prefer to see Valve release games, starting with Left 4 Dead 2, through the Ubuntu Software Center. That would help bolster an existing effort to build a Linux software store while still giving Valve access to a new base of users.